Trinity, a concept thought by many in the church to be essential for Christian belief, has for centuries been accepted as basic doctrine. However, is the trinity taught in the bible? The simple and short answer is no; the trinity is not taught in the bible. How, then, has this doctrine become so engrained within the Christian life and experience?

The term Trinity, the belief that one God exists in three distinct but equal persons, does not appear anywhere in the bible. It was first used by Tertullian near the culmination of the 2nd century. However, it only came into conventional and familiar use during the fourth and fifth centuries. From these two pieces of information, we can clearly see that the trinity is not taught in the bible.

Furthermore, we must note that the formal doctrine of the trinity was the result of several insufficient attempts to explain who and what the Christian God truly is. In an effort to address this problem, the Church Fathers met in 325 A.D. at the Council of Nicaea to set out an orthodox biblical definition concerning the divine identity. Moreover, it was not until A.D. 381, at the Council of Constantinople, that the divinity of the spirit was affirmed. Therefore, we can conclude that the doctrine of the trinity was not formalized until after the bible was completed and all the apostles had been long dead.

Understanding the aforementioned historical developments, we must conclude the bible does not teach the doctrine of the trinity. Neither the word ‘trinity’ nor such language as ‘one in three,’ ‘three in one,’ one ‘essence’ (or ‘substance’ ), and three ‘persons,’ is biblical language. The language of the doctrine is the language of classical Greek philosophy (Christian Doctrine, 1994, pp. 76-77). That philosophy, by the way, is not truly Greek, but derived from ancient African mystery teachings. Such considerations aside, the fact remains, trinity is not taught in the bible.